Let me respectfully disagree.

I have a couple of problems with Howard Kurtz's column at Washington Post.com:

"Bill O'Reilly has been arguing that the shooting doesn't affect the average American one whit but that "the press is making a big deal out of this because they despise Dick Cheney."
I'd concede that the vice president is probably not their favorite politician. But in terms of it "mattering" -- did it matter to the average American that Bill Clinton was fooling around on his wife, or that Vince Foster committed suicide (to pick two matters that seemed to matter a great deal to the conservative commentariat)?"

How can he even compare the two? Both of the latter examples were deliberate. Clinton's was an intentional immoral and unethical act within the White House. Cheney's was an accident and has nothing to do with morality. To compare them is ludicrous.

"Had Cheney addressed this right away, it would have been a far more modest story."

I don't believe that for one second. No matter what Cheney did in contacting the press, they would have blown this up into the media frenzy that it is now. The Vice President shoots someone? Too juicy. Sorry. As Cheney pointed out, accuracy is more important than swiftness. But the opposite is true for the media.